Proposed new variant subtag: pre1917

[John Cowan]

On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 1:51 PM, Caoimhin O Donnaile
<caoimhin at smo.uhi.ac.uk> wrote:

> Did either of the spelling reforms also apply to Belarusan (bel)
> and Ukranian (ukr)?

Both Ukrainian and Belarusan underwent spelling reforms in the 1917-18
time frame, but they weren't the same as Russian's, for the excellent
reason that their typographical conventions had separated from Russian
as early as the 17th century.  Ukrainian certainly, and Belarusian
probably, had earlier been affected by the Petrine reforms (which,
remember, were mostly about altering letter shapes and eliminating
certain letters, and only indirectly about orthography).  Both
languages underwent further spelling reforms in both the Soviet and
post-Soviet periods.